Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1887-03-05
Peculiar RECOMMENDATIONS.

From Harper's BaZar.
1t is always amusing, If vexatious, to note the
efforts of Englishmen to represent American man
ners In their books and to observe their failures
whether it is Disraeli, with his Southern colonel
and the lady Of the ropes OF pearls or Lord Lytton
or the weaker and less conspicuous MI. Lang.
They one and all fail to catch the spirit or breathe
the atmosphere; while, on the other hand, there
cannot give pretty fairly the English scene and
character without laundering One OF the chief
difficulties Of these English writer's is with the
dialect OF our various sections, which vastly
amuses them, as II dialect and odd pronunciation
were something unheard OF till the great West
opened. Yet one questions why they concern
themselves with 1t, when they have such varying
and such unwarranted dialects and RECOMMENDATIONS
at home to struggle with II they will
na1es-the names of families. towns or rivers: II
one pronounced them they are spelled, one would
no more be understood than in pronOuncing Welsh
or Hungarian as it is spelled. Some OF these cor
ruptions of sound OF theirs are more or less intel
ligible. One can see, for instance, how rapid ut
terance would turn Charters into Charters, or
KnollyS into NOleS, Chichester into ChtdSter, AL
mOndsbury into Amsbry, Beauchief into Beechif,
Mainwartng into Mannering, HallOugtOn into Hor-
ton, st. Leger into seliinger st. Maar into Ssme1
ton. And again one can understand how the thick
tongue OF the clodhopper has turned York into Yor-
rick and how from habit or choice the more delicate
enumeration has adopted many such; asturned
Twickenham into Twittnum, Bracegtrdle into BreS-
kittle even Alne into Orn EardSwtck into YardSck,
Stabbs, Kidderminster into Kiddy or sacred Grass
mere into GuTSmer, into POSSet Saltheetby
into Sollaby. Fox-le- Henntng into Foxnailin, Dur
ham into Dorm, Hutton into YuttOn, and so on
interminably. Still further, it is not difficult to
understand the local pronunciation of various
words once foreign wnetner DANISH sh or o Moman
that which out Of Rievaulx makes Rivers,
Beever out Of Belyoir, out Of Magdalen Maudin,
Pomfret out OF POntefract, Ltghtn1ng-in
Morning out of laughter en-le- MOrthen, Grasedy
cat OF Grace-D1eu, HOssmoncy out OF Hurst Mon
ceaux, BOsengate out OF Bosanquet, Dumarfc out
OF Dumaresq9e, Deell out OF Dalzie strorn out Of
Strachan, and HEIRLOOM out OF ColQuhoun. 1t is
easy also to see that certain names should have
90 ne As y
WEIGH words and others; it fits Langoilen, In
Denbighshire, to be called Thlangothlen, and
Glyndyfwydry, in Wales, to be called GlindOwdry,
| While Gre Fydd becomes quite naturally Grin1th,
and various Scotch and French names keep some
| OF their original tWang.
of thick tongue or dun ear can turn Pyon into
Progown, DIls Coppice into Doocups, Churchdown
Sey no
| ley, Birmingham and CreSstngham into Brumma-
gem and Crissengum, Asht0n-under-Lyne into
Thrutchm, Doom into Orn, Hughenden into Hitch.
enden, Meddlethorpe into ThelJhrup, Macclesfleld
into Maxlt, WoOdfardisw0rthy into Orlsery, Dray-
ton into Rattn, CairnSin to Keys, PampiSfOrd into
| Panza, and acknowledgement into Sapza? Yet we
| can become so used to all these singular lapseS
as to feel little surprise when We discover that
1
| heaton is to be pronounced Yeaton ALSO that st.
| Neots is Sheets in Cornwall and Snotes In Hunt
| ingdonshire, that Brislington is Barstun, that
| CholmOndestm Is ChumsJon, that BObbingworth
| is Buvvinger, that Ac0mb is Yaccam that North
brook End is Nobacken, that Brighthelmstone is
| Brytun that RavenstOndale is Rissendale, that
KenilwOrth is Kill1ngwOrth, that st. Jelly is Ste
vengelly, that StoughtOn Is Stretun, Heppernolme
| is H1ppuin OakhamptOn is lexington, Wemyss is
Weems, Ruthven is Riven and LeveSOn- Cover If
LewSon Gore.
It remains, then, only part Of the natural de.
pravity OF the British tongue that 1t should utter
GarbOldisham as Feltum, Idndgeley as Ither-
sea- Babingley as Beverley, AldbOrough as Au.
bruf, scarborough as Barmber, preston as Orr
| again, Jedburgh as Jethart, SelmestOn as Stmp-
| son, SOrepting as Summest and Liverpool as Lur-
| pie 1t would seem plainly as II people with q
| tendency to SO uncOuth an articulation as this Of
| our cousins across the sea had enough to do with
| the barDar1ans within their own borders, without
| going three thousand miles across water to fin0
| amusement with those not their own. The fact II
| that their own are SO old, OF such long standing
and 30 thoroughly familtarized that it Is not gen
| orally seen and recognized among them that thert
| is anything quaint or queer or Outlandish about
| them. But in spite OF that it remains truth
| that the Americans OF the United States have bit
three real distinct dlalects-f we except the Gre
| Ole-the New England or Yankee, the Southern
Cracker or MOOnSn1ner. and the broad Western
or HOoser the others being but exceedingly slight
variations on these three bases while the dialects
| of the English alone, emitting Scotland, Wales
| and Ireland, are more countless than their magiS
| terial districts.